October 2017

Welcome to the MyWays Student Success

Framework

Report 6 of the MyWays Student Success Series

Grace Belfiore and Dave Lashfor Next Generation Learning Challenges

About this report Report 6, Welcome to the MyWays Student Success Framework,

summarizes what student success looks like in an age of

accelerations. The report offers an overview of the framework; a

preview of the four MyWays domains and the five competencies in

each domain; a description of what you will find in Reports 7–10

on the individual domains; and a starter selection of important

resources.

Report 6 is the first of five reports in Part B of the MyWays Student

Success Series. Part B, “Broader, Deeper Competencies for

Student Success,” provides a composite definition of student

success in learning, work, and life, drawing on over 25 highly-

regarded frameworks and the literature in the education, work, and

human development fields.

The MyWays Student Success Series examines the through-line of

four essential questions for next generation learning and provides

research and practice-based support to help school designers and

educators to answer these questions. The series consists of 12

reports organized into three parts, plus a Visual Summary and

Introduction and Overview.

The primary researchers and authors of the MyWays Student

Success Series are Dave Lash, Principal at Dave Lash & Company,

and Grace Belfiore, D.Phil., Principal Consultant at Belfiore

Education Consulting.

MyWays is a project of Next Generation Learning Challenges,

an initiative of the non-profit EDUCAUSE. MyWays is supported

through a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

with additional support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,

the Barr Foundation, and the Oak Foundation.

nextgenlearning.org

© 2017 EDUCAUSE. This work is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Cover photo by Redd Angelo on Unsplash

The MyWaysTM Student Success Series

All reports in the series are available for download at

myways.nextgenlearning.org/report.

Visual Summary

Introduction and Overview

Part A: Adolescence in an Age of Accelerations

Summarizes specific real-world realities and

conditions confronting today’s young people.

Report 1: Opportunity, Work, and the Wayfinding Decade

Report 2: 5 Roadblocks to Bootstrapping a Career

Report 3: 5 Decisions in Navigating the Work/Learn Landscape

Report 4: 5 Essentials in Building Social Capital

Report 5: Preparing Apprentice-Adults for Life after High School

Part B: Broader, Deeper Competencies for Student Success

Provides a composite definition of student

success in learning, work, and life.

Report 6: Welcome to the MyWays Student Success Framework

Report 7: Habits of Success — for Learning, Work, and Well-being

Report 8: Creative Know How — for a Novel, Complex World

Report 9: Content Knowledge — for the Life Students Will Lead

Report 10: Wayfinding Abilities — for Destinations Unknown

Part C: Redesigning the Learning Experience for the MyWays Competencies

Brings the broader and deeper competencies

of the MyWays Student Success Framework

into educational practice.

Report 11: Learning Design for Broader, Deeper Competencies

Report 12: Assessment Design for Broader, Deeper Competencies

Next Generation Learning Challenges

MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 1

REPORT 6

Welcome to the MyWays Student Success Framework

In the back of the class, there’s that idly waving hand… You gesture toward the hand, Let’s hear it. And of course Smartass says “Why do we need to know this?”

It’s an uppity question... but when I cool down and think about it… [it’s] an uppity version of one of the most important questions in education, a question with only three words: What’s worth learning…?

[And] it’s a good reminder that the question doesn’t just belong to state school boards, authors of textbooks, writers of curriculum standards, and other elite. It’s on the minds of our students.

—David Perkins

A founder of Project Zero and Professor Emeritus, Harvard Graduate School of Education1

Competencies for a new kind of readiness

Perkins’s colleague from Project Zero, Howard Gardner, contends that “students need an education that is

deeply rooted in . . . what is known about the human condition, in its timeless aspects, and what is known

about the pressures, challenges and opportunities of the contemporary and coming scene. Without this

double anchoring, we are doomed to an education that is dated, partial, naïve, and inadequate.”2 The

previous reports in this series reveal how the development of the MyWays Student Success Framework was

shaped by Gardner’s lenses, including research on the human condition and human development (such as

adolescent development, learning and brain science, trauma, and resilience) while simultaneously

examining the challenges and opportunities in

the contemporary and coming scene in both

education and work. The Introduction and

Overview of the MyWays Student Success

Series summarizes the scope of the MyWays

research. For a snapshot of the research see

the Venn diagram to the right; for more detail

and a list of the frameworks we analyze, see

that Introduction and Overview report.

In this first report of Part B, we reintroduce

the MyWays Student Success Framework,

covering:

The framework’s characteristics

A preview of the four domains and the

five competencies in each domain

What you will find in the reports that

follow, dedicated to each of the domains

A starter selection of important resources

Report 6 | Welcome to the MyWays Student Success Framework

MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 2

Andrew F. Kazmierski / Shutterstock.com

Building a success framework for an age of accelerations

It is clear from our analysis that what’s worth learning revolves around what learners will need to

navigate in today’s “disorderly world” — both for their own personal advancement and fulfillment and to

work with others to address that world’s challenges.

Clearly, this calls for a broader, deeper, more integrated, and more adaptable set of competencies than our

schools typically address today. A true “success framework” must stress not only the ability to do college

level work but also the ability to bootstrap a career despite a troubled labor market; to plot a path to entry

and advantage in the complex work/learn landscape; and to develop the social capital needed to progress

in the “wayfinding” decade of

their twenties. These key

trends and challenges that are

likely to confront all young

people we have called the 5-5-

5 Realities. They are described

fully in the reports in Part A,

“Adolescence in an Age of

Accelerations,” and are

summarized to the left. These

realities were kept firmly in

mind as we developed the

MyWays Student Success

Framework, helping to shape competencies that boost resourcefulness, resolve, innovative thinking,

adaptability, an orientation toward the big picture, and building networks.

The MyWays framework must serve not only academically prepared students from higher income

families who complete college in large numbers but also the two-thirds of all students — many from less

advantaged families — who leave high school not fully prepared or not prepared for college work. (For

background on these groups, see Report 3.) Finally, a true success

framework must encompass not only fundamental academic

competencies but also whole-person mindsets, behaviors, interpersonal

skills, and individual strengths that contribute to personal resourcefulness,

adaptability, and ingenuity.

As the OECD’s Andreas Schleicher puts it,

In the past, education was about teaching people something. Now

it’s about making sure that individuals develop a reliable

compass and the navigation skills to find their own way

through an increasingly uncertain, volatile, and ambiguous

world. [emphasis added]3

Hence (as first discussed in the Introduction and Overview report) our

choice of the title “MyWays” for this Student Success Framework, a

name that elevates the navigational aspects of this new kind of readiness.

Report 6 | Welcome to the MyWays Student Success Framework

MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 3

Major characteristics of a future-oriented, student-centered goal set

As we discussed in detail in Part A, our analysis of the needs of today and tomorrow led us to both an

expanded set of competency domains and to a more nuanced, two-dimensional view of the nature of

competency. We will recap these important MyWays characteristics, starting here with the expansion of

the competency set.

A broader competency set

The competencies required for a student-centered (rather than content-centered) goal-line extend well

beyond NCLB-era math and ELA content knowledge. They include other “future ready” content, a range

of adaptable skills, key social-emotional habits, and the application of all of these to create one’s own

path in life. We clustered this collection of competencies into four domains:

Habits of Success are:

Behaviors and practices that enable students to own

their learning and cultivate personal effectiveness

Creative Know How involves:

Skills and abilities to analyze complex problems and

construct solutions in real-world situations

Content Knowledge focuses on:

Subject area knowledge and organizing concepts

essential for academic and real-world applications

Wayfinding Abilities cover:

Knowledge and capacity to successfully navigate

college, career, and life opportunities and choices

A wealth of research, analysis, synthesis, and practice lies behind these brief descriptions. For now, it is

important to highlight the breadth and future orientation of this set of competencies (when compared to

those addressed in most schools today), as well as to recognize what’s new in each domain.

MyWays is a goal-line in which:

• Habits of Success not only joins the definition, but leads the way;

• 21st century skills development has become the more agile and adaptable Creative Know How;

• Content Knowledge is extended into authentic application; and

• developing the Wayfinding Abilities to navigating one’s own life merits equal standing with the other three domains.

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MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 4

For more on why these changes are necessary and how they are evolving, see the preview of the MyWays

competencies in the last section of this report, as well as Reports 7–10, in which we explore the domains

and their competencies in more depth. Note that while the MyWays framework is organized in discrete

constructs, in reality the domains and competencies are highly interrelated. They support each other in

numerous ways, and learners will use them in a rich variety of combinations to address the particular

roadblocks, decisions, and adversities they face, driven by their unique interests, and opportunities.

A richer view of the meaning of competency

As introduced in Report 5, not only do we need a

broader set of competencies, but each of the

competencies needs to include elements of both

capability and agency. This holds true through all

four domains, as well as the five competencies in

each domain.

Within each of those domain sections, look for

craftsmanship, mastery, and artistry4 — all part of

demonstrating capability; and self-management,

self-reflection, and creative empowerment — all

associated with developing student agency. For

more on these and other practices integral to these

aspects of competency, see also the section on

Capability and Agency in Report 5, as well as the

section in Report 11 that goes into more detail on

the Levers for Capability and Agency that learning

research indicates to be effective in developing

these two aspects of competence.

Our review of the accelerated and complex world our students will encounter reinforces just how vital

agency, in particular, will be to their survival, success, and well-being. One principle embedded in our

exploration of the four MyWays competency domains — as well as in the learning and assessment needed

to foster the broader and deeper approach — is that, for agency to develop, educators must support

students in exercising and developing agency as they work along acceleration lanes into adult life.

If you are interested in reading more about the four-question through-line that drives the MyWays Student

Success Framework and the research that went into the creation of this definition of student success,

please see the Introduction and Overview of the MyWays Student Success Series.

The MyWays Student Success Framework

Like much that happens in the realm of education reform and learning innovation, where unintended

consequences abound, it is instructive to consider not only what the MyWays framework is (its goals and

purposes), but also what it is not (with cautions about how its constructs could be mis-used).

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MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 5

What the MyWays Student Success Framework is

This framework is the result of analysis and synthesis conducted over more than two years, drawing on

over 25 existing competency frameworks and, at last count, more than 200 papers and research studies.

Our goal with MyWays, however, is not to replace or compete with the frameworks that shaped it;

instead, we offer a universal translator for them — a rosetta stone of competency definition — to surface

the commonalities among these frameworks, increase their interoperability, and maximize their

usefulness and impact in the field.

The MyWays Student Success Framework was designed with six primary goals in mind:

1. Synthesize the student success landscape for educators and policy makers, and provide a

means to organize and access the related research, concepts, best practices, and practitioner tools

to maximize its usefulness.

2. Develop a common language that can be used to promote learning goals that are comprehensive,

coherent, and empowering.

3. Accommodate a wide spectrum of postsecondary career and education pathways and

choices, and highlight the need to incorporate more authentic, out-of-school opportunities to

develop competencies.

4. Provide a flexible, easy-to-use tool for self-evaluation and continuous improvement to help

educators gauge the breadth and depth of student success competencies.

5. Offer a clear and adaptable set of success signposts for students and parents to consider in

navigating the way forward.

6. Encompass the needs of students of all incomes and abilities, including those who must

overcome the challenges of intergenerational poverty and racial and other discrimination. As the goal implies, like other frameworks — including ConnectEd — we see a broader and

richer competency framework as a potent equity strategy that empowers students, families,

educators, communities, and policymakers to make more informed decisions and engage

effectively in aligning systems and resources to close equity gaps.

Using the MyWays Student Success Framework: “Stories from the Field”

EdSurge recently published “Stories from the Field,” five outstanding early examples of educators using

MyWays to shift their models toward a broader set of success competencies:

How Brooklyn LAB Charter School is Integrating Non-Academic Habits into the Classroom

Teachers at Two Rivers Roll Up Their Sleeves to Build Assessments from Scratch

How State Reform in New Hampshire Led to Teacher Autonomy

Can SEL Support Personalized Learning? How One Chicago School Is Finding Out

How Valor Collegiate Academy is Rethinking SEL

In these stories, teams of educators experiment with the framework in various ways, including

incorporating Habits of Success in the design of a mentor block (CICS West Belden); evaluating the

MyWays Whole-Student Competency Plot as a tool to visualize learner profiles (Two Rivers); and even

integrating the entire framework into the Cortex learning platform (Brooklyn LAB).

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MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 6

What the MyWays Student Success Framework is not

What the framework is not is the “one best” compilation of student competencies to be addressed in

full, simultaneously or in sequence, for all learners. As the Stories from the Field illustrate, individual

learners, schools, school districts, or school networks can use MyWays to look more thoughtfully at and

update an existing goal-line or to create a new one — and even then, they will need to use their own

language, choose priorities from each domain, and establish guidelines to enable teacher choice and

student personalization on specific goals to be addressed within the broad domains.

This framework is also emphatically not a checklist of component parts intended individually to

drive curriculum, pedagogy, scheduling, and assessment. We view the whole competency set as

crucially important for school leaders, teachers, and students to hold and use as a North Star. Still, we

worry that some people might take a classic standards-based reform approach and use individual

competencies to define individual assessments that “atomize” the skills and lead to unintended

consequences in learning and instruction, such as creating stand-alone courses in creativity or online

programs in remedial collaborative skills. (The box below may be an exaggeration, but it is close enough

to what’s already happening in some instances to act as an important warning.)

Hopefully, time spent exploring the competency domains will make abundantly clear how and why the

applied knowledge, transferable skills, practiced habits, and personalized wayfinding they include could

never develop in such an atomized way. (This, in turn, explains why the MyWays approach to learning

and assessment is so focused on authenticity and holistic experience.)

Our greatest hope is that the MyWays framework will provide a thought-provoking and practical tool that

can help educators decide how to incorporate skills that students will desperately need in tomorrow’s

“disorderly world” into holistic learning experiences, both within and outside the school walls.

Implementing Competencies: How It Could All Go Wrong

How do we avoid organizing learning element-by-element around the broader

competencies, using them as a recipe rather than a set of goals?

How do we avoid…this?

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MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 7

Preview of the MyWays domains

The MyWays Student Success Framework covers considerable ground because it embraces a whole-

person approach. No one learner and no one school model is expected to address all 20 competencies in a

granular, sequential way. The value of this comprehensive rosetta stone framework is to keep breadth and

depth front of mind for the creation of individual journeys that vary based on learner strengths and

interests — an approach vital to adolescence in the age of accelerations.

In this section we preview the four MyWays domains in a two-page spread, highlighting for each domain

its five competencies and a few key principles to keep in mind in addressing the domain. For more

extensive treatment of these competencies and principles see the four domain reports, Reports 7–10.

But first we would like to share some context on how the domains developed. While MyWays emerged

partly from the study of dozens of existing competency frameworks, we were also cognizant of the needs

of the complex, rapidly changing future facing our students, as dramatically revealed in the research

behind Part A of this series.

We start our MyWays domains with Habits of Success rather than with Content Knowledge. We do this

intentionally because we believe Habits of Success represents the biggest gap between what students

currently learn in school and what they MUST now learn in order to thrive in the rapidly changing and

disorderly world. We place Creative Know How next not only because of its interconnections with Habits

of Success but also because these adaptable skills are changing rapidly even as educators begin to

embrace them. We include Content Knowledge in order to highlight a new focus on organizing concepts

and application and also to provide a paradigm in which content learning can be fully integrated with

other domains. And, in another departure from most frameworks, MyWays gives the development of

personal Wayfinding Abilities equal standing with the other domains as a set of competencies required

by the increasing novelty and complexity of the world in which our students will live.

While the inclusion of even two or three of these revised priorities is rare among the more than 25

frameworks we studied, we firmly believe all four are justified by growing understanding of the complex

and uncertain future, including the importance of developing social capital and the need to hone the

uniquely human elements of work and social organization.

KnowledgeWorks’ Forecast 4.0, Redefining Readiness from the Inside Out, which portrays the world of

2040, offers many of the same priorities, especially relating to the new focus on Habits of Success:

“To prepare for a future in which smart machines will be able to perform increasingly

complex, non-routine work and full-time employment will be decreasingly common,

today’s education systems must change their central operating principles. They must

continue to shift from a limiting focus on mastering content and must also move

beyond the more recent focus on thinking and doing to establish a new focus on

feeling and relating. [Emphasis added.]

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MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 8

Leveraging the emotion system to interface with the world and to connect deeply with other

people represents the uniquely human capacity that people bring to work. This capacity will

ensure that we will continue to add distinctive value alongside smart machine partners.

Establishing a new focus on feeling and relating will help education institutions and systems

align with a future of readiness in which the core social-emotional skills and foundational

cognitive and metacognitive practices that we have described in this paper will be more

important and enduring than specific content or job- and task-related skills. While there will

still be a place for both mastering content and thinking and doing, making feeling and

relating central to learning will enable students to develop the skills and practices necessary

to meet the emerging realities of work with adaptability and resilience.”5

Clearly there is some correlation between KnowledgeWorks’ Mastering Content and MyWays’ Content

Knowledge, between Thinking & Doing and Creative Know How, and between Feeling & Relating and

Habits of Success, and this graph is useful in clarifying the need for shifting emphasis over time.

However, it is also true that each of the MyWays competency domains incorporates multiple principles,

and that our research into learning science and adolescent development convinces us that Feeling &

Relating are essential not only to prepare for an uncertain future, but also for the development of more

deep, durable, and adaptable learning of Content Knowledge and Creative Know How. So we see the shift

as additive rather than focused on replacement.

And MyWays takes the additional step of including Wayfinding Abilities as a fourth competency domain,

highlighting the need for learners to leverage all these attributes to make their own way in the world — and

indeed to wayfind new paths for the world they will be inhabiting. We believe this set of competencies will

continue to increase in importance as the number of ways to create value and communicate with others, and

the number of ways to continue to learn, work, and serve our communities continues to proliferate.

A summary of the four MyWays domains appears on the following pages.

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MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 9

Preview of the MyWays Competency Domains The framework covers considerable ground because it embraces a whole-person approach. No one learner or one school model will address all 20 competencies in a granular, sequential way. The aim of the framework is to keep breadth and depth front of mind for the creation of individual journeys that vary based on learner strengths and interests.

Habits of Success — for learning, work, and well-being Developing the interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, habits, and behaviors that research suggests are essential to success in learning, self-direction, and well-being.

Academic Behaviors Going to class, participating fully, completing homework and projects, and managing time and resources

Self-Direction & Perseverance Initiative, flexibility and adaptability, grit and tenacity, self-control

Positive Mindsets “I belong in this learning community. My ability and competence grow with my effort. I can succeed at this task. This work has value for me.”

Learning Strategies Study skills and strategies, goal-setting, self-regulated learning, help seeking

Social Skills & Responsibility Interpersonal skills, empathy, cooperation, leadership, ethics, and ability to build social networks

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Educators should help students to:

1. Experience day-to-day the active, authentic learning that enables students to work on their Habits of Success in integrated, sequenced, and explicit ways.

2. Benefit from strong adult relationships, which are necessary for all students to develop the Habits — and even more vital for those affected by poverty, trauma, or other challenges.

3. Avoid the unintended and negative consequences possible in emerging measurement of Habits of Success, particularly as part of high-stakes accountability.

Creative Know How — for a novel, complex world Developing strength in the 4Cs (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, Creativity) as well as skills relevant to the increasingly “disorderly” world — entrepreneurship, media/IT, and practical life.

Critical Thinking & Problem Solving Ability to analyze and reason effectively, and use systems thinking and design thinking toward solving problems in varied settings

Creativity & Entrepreneurship The imagination, inventiveness, and experimentation to achieve new and productive ideas and solutions

Communication & Collaboration Oral, written, and visual communication skills and the ability to work effectively with diverse teams

Information, Media, & Technology Skills

Ability to access, evaluate, manage, create, and disseminate information and media using a wide variety of technology tools

Practical Life Skills Ability to understand and manage personal finances, health, and independence

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Educators should help students to:

1. Develop and transfer competencies in novel, real-world contexts, incorporating a variety of complex and rapidly changing situations.

2. Work on skills and knowledge in integrated ways — learners need to apply skills to and through content knowledge, learning both more deeply, in a virtuous cycle.

3. Focus explicitly on these skills — naming, practicing, and reflecting on them, as well as being coached on them and receiving on-going and effective feedback.

4. Explore the ways in which Creative Know How competencies are intimately interrelated with each other and with the Habits of Success.

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MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 10

Content Knowledge — for the life students will lead Developing knowledge of a broader, more future-ready range of subjects than we have today, including interdisciplinary and global literacies, and career-related technical skills for all.

English Core Deep English learning and application across settings, aligned with the Common Core and similar standards

Math Core Deep math learning and application across settings, aligned with the Common Core and similar standards

Science, Social Studies, Arts, Languages

Active learning of core disciplinary concepts and their application in a broad selection of liberal arts and sciences, and performing and language arts

Interdisciplinary & Global Knowledge

Integrated interdisciplinary thinking and empathetic development of global, cross-cultural, civic, environmental, and economic literacies

Career-Related Technical Skills The integration of academic, technical, and employability skills in at least one existing career area or emerging problem space of personal interest

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Educators should help students to:

1. Focus on a few “high-leverage” constructs in each subject that are central to the structure of the discipline, transfer, and continued learning in a world of change.

2. Engage with content through learner-driven, purposeful, real-world experiences, which improve learning while preparing students for life.

3. Attain balance by developing “T-shaped” knowledge, pursuing appropriate breadth while also developing depth of expertise in chosen areas.

Wayfinding Abilities — for destinations unknown Developing the five Wayfinding competencies through an integrated, iterative process with multiple entry points — and particular focus on navigating transitions, learning from failure, and building social capital.

Survey the Learn, Work, & Life Landscapes

Ability to research and understand information, resources, external barriers, and internal factors relevant to upcoming transitions in school, career, and life

Identify Opportunities & Set Goals The self-awareness, focus, and strategic thinking to cultivate individual strengths and set goals for learning, work, and life

Design & Iterate Prototype

Experiences

Ability to translate goals into prototype experiences for each new stage or transition, especially the transition from high schooler to independent, contributing adult

Find Needed Help & Resources Ability to identify, locate, and secure the time, money, materials, organizations, mentors, and partners needed to support one’s plans

Navigate Each Stage of the Journey Ability to implement plans in the worlds of education, work, and life, making mid-course adjustments as required based on new experience

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Educators should help students to:

1. Start early, so that building awareness of one’s own profile and interests, and of the world outside the school walls, informs learning choices and enhances relevance and motivation.

2. Harness the Wider Learning Ecosystem to engage with the adult world and give learners access to opportunities for developing Wayfinding Abilities.

3. Access the kind of support necessary to enable real progress in Wayfinding Abilities. 4. Address the barriers to equity inherent in competencies that are built on relationship-based supports and

community-based lines of sight to college, career, and life outcomes.

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MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 11

User guide to the domain reports Reports 7–10 provide an expanded introduction to each of the domains and its competencies and include

the following content.

A conceptual introduction to the domain as a whole:

Why the domain is so important

An overview of the domain’s five competencies

Key principles for addressing practice in the domain

A short summary of the state of play in learning and assessment in the domain

A quick resource dive for the domain (starter resources, competency frameworks, school models)

One-page primers on each of the domain’s five competencies:

A brief description of competency outcomes

Where to look for ideas on understanding and activating the competency

Additional resources as food for thought

Please note: although we have surveyed the field extensively, what’s presented in these reports barely

scratches the surface of available research and practice. Entire books are written on the domains and

many of the individual competencies. Where existing competency frameworks are strong on particular

domains, we point you to them. It is also important to highlight the fact that the maturity of research,

learning design, and assessment approaches is highly variable among the four domains. Learning

objectives and authentic learning approaches for Content Knowledge, for example, are relatively mature,

whereas effective ways to develop and especially assess Habits of Success are only beginning to emerge,

and Wayfinding Abilities are rarely addressed at all. At the individual competency level, there is even

greater variation: one or two mindsets in Habits of Success are surprisingly mature, while some

competencies within Creative Know How lag behind the others. Each report’s section on the state of play

in learning and assessment offers context (and cautions); we suggest you read those pages carefully.

The MyWays project is collective and ongoing work, and Next Generation Learning Challenges is

interested in collaborating with its grantees and other organizations to augment and refine the MyWays

rosetta stone, as well as to gather a professional community to share practices for the broader and deeper

student success competencies. Please visit the MyWays website, where you can express interest in the

MyWays Community of Practice, share your thoughts, and sign up for MyWays updates.

What education is becoming more about

We hope this welcome report has successfully oriented you to the four MyWays domains. Preparing our

students for a challenging, unpredictable tomorrow clearly calls for a broader, deeper, and, in some cases,

qualitatively different set of competencies from those of the past. As the Center for Curriculum

Redesign’s characterization of the role of education today suggests:

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MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 12

Educational success is no longer mainly about reproducing content knowledge, but about

extrapolating from what we know and applying that knowledge in novel situations. Put

simply, the world no longer rewards people just for what they know — search engines

know everything — but for what they can do with what they know, how they behave in

the world, and how they adapt.

Because that is the main differentiator today, education is becoming more about

creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration; about modern knowledge,

including the capacity to recognize and exploit the potential of new technologies; and last

but not least, about the character qualities that help fulfilled people live and work

together and build a sustainable humanity.6

For MyWays’ take on what education is “becoming more about,” please see Reports 7–10.

Quick Resource Dive for the MyWays Student Success Framework

A starter selection of important resources:

See the Introduction and Overview of the MyWays Student Success Series, especially the sections on

the framework’s foundations and our decisions on including and clustering competencies; the latter

section has a list of other frameworks that informed MyWays and a chart showing alignment between

MyWays and eight of the most prominent existing frameworks.

David Perkins, Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World

Charles Fadel, Maya Bialik, and Bernie Trilling, Four-Dimensional Education: the Competencies Learners

Need to Succeed

EPIC and David Conley, The Four Keys to College and Career Readiness

VIDEO: The OECD’s Andreas Schleicher discusses Four-Dimensional Education and provides an

excellent summary of both why the world is more volatile and how broader and deeper competencies

are needed to succeed in it.

Note: These resources are intended to support the overview nature of this welcome report. You will find

quick resource dives in each of the four domain reports, as well as further resource links in each of the 20

individual competency primers.

Report 6 | Welcome to the MyWays Student Success Framework

MyWays Student Success Series: What Learners Need to Thrive in a World of Change 13

Endnotes for Report 6

1 David Perkins, Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World, Jossey-Bass, 2014, p. 1.

2 Howard Gardner, The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts and Standardizations, Penguin Random House, 2000, p.

20, quoted in Anna Rosefsky Saavedra and V. Darleen Opfer, Teaching and Learning 21st Century Skills: Lessons

from the Learning Sciences, Asia Society, April 2012, p. 9.

3 Charles Fadel, Maya Bialik, and Bernie Trilling, Four-Dimensional Education: the Competencies Learners Need

to Succeed, Center for Curriculum Redesign, 2015, p. 2.

4 Ibid., p. 1.

4 See the excellent discussion of artistry, mastery, and craftsmanship in Elliot Washor and Charles Mojowski,

Leaving to Learn: How Out of School Learning Increases Student Engagement and Reduces Dropout Rates,

Heinemann, 2013, pp. 66-69.

5 Katherine Prince, Andrea Saveri, and Jason Swanson, The Future of Learning: Redefining Readiness from the

Inside Out (KnowledgeWorks Forecast 4.0), p. 40.